La Proie et l'ombre. Durtal et la confusion gastro-sexuelle

In this article, we argue that the familiar conception of food as a prelude to the sexual act assumes obsessive and problematic proportions in Huysmans's 1891 novel Là-Bas. Durtal, a somewhat misplaced Casanova, seems to suffer from what we would call a gastro-sexual pathology and is therefore unable to enjoy sex or food. But there is a way to cure this "anomaly," and it is to be found in Catholicism, or perhaps rather, "decadence?" (In French) (MS)